lovely little kusoge from ex-taito developers making a 3D spiritual successor to elevator action. taut from back-to-front and surprisingly focused too! it's a rare japanese first-person shooter in the metroid prime / resident evil 4 control mode: tank controls, strafe button, back-turns, IR aiming. turning while moving is smooth, and enemy bullets lack hitscan that would make them otherwise bothersome to dodge. actual enjoyment of said combat relies heavily on your inherent enjoyment in popping two to the dome of random mooks running around the fifty-floor complex you're invading, since their behavior is idiotic and their attack patterns mostly identical to one another. floor layouts primarily feature tight hallways that create mini light-gun challenges for you to undertake; thinking of it through that lens is more engaging than a traditional FPS imo.

didn't play it more than once, but it seems the layout is semi-randomized? I imagine this mostly boils down to simply which hallways appear inconveniently cluttered with stacked furniture between runs. regardless, progression takes place in ten-floor chunks, each of which features a separate map and data disk for you to collect. stumble around blindly until you mow down some (usually red) goon with the map, and then closely examine the labryinth's layout until you determine where a similarly notable goon with the data disk might be. retrieve the disk and navigate down to the bottom of the section where the gate to the next area has been disarmed. the game's worst sin (outside of looking drab) revolves around data disk collection in the mid-game, where the devs get a hair too clever and mandate backtracking to previous sections in order to collect certain disks after killing someone who seems like the disk-holder in a lower section. totally understand that this otherwise-brief game needed some padding, but the dripfeed of exploration ceases in these sections, and it makes the game's cheapness all the more glaring.

other biggest element of the loop consists of picking up various powerups. the most useful of these is a radar that alerts you to where enemies will approach from; true to the elevator action legacy, all enemies appear out of the many, many doors that line each hallway. the player can also collect night-vision goggles which allow them to see when the electricity has been knocked out for a floor, which is more-or-less a get-out-of-jail free card the player can cash if they see an electrical panel or whatever and are running low on health. other than standard health pickups, there's also both shotguns and machine guns at the player's disposal to procure ammo for outside of their unlimited-magazine standard-issue pistol. these are amusing enough (I love how the shotguns basically just shoot a giant bullet), but switching weapons is time-consuming in a game where pincer formations appear quickly around the player. besides, the pistol packs a fucking punch regardless, and why would you want to play this game if it didn't? the game never reaches a difficulty where these decisions are meaningful; on one hand I would have potentially enjoyed a hard mode to enjoy after credits rolled, but I don't think I would have been eager to see the results of such an addition to a work that was already so hastily constructed.